With Drake on the Spanish Main

by Herbert Strang

"No, no. Besides that it would be a poor compliment to Mirandola himself, it would have some spice of danger for us. Left to themselves in freedom, the men would of a surety signal to any passing ship, the which being in all likelihood Spanish, the report of our doings would soon be spread abroad through all the coast, and a hue and cry would be raised after us. We must bring them along with us. Trust me, they shall have no chance then of giving the alarm to the enemy, and 'tis not unlike, indeed, they may serve us as hostages."

"I fear me they'll be the Jonahs in our marvellous craft."

"An ill comparison, Amos. Jonah fled from his duty, and by reason of his wrongdoing peril came upon the mariners. The similitude does not hold."

"That be a great comfort, sir, in especial for that there be no whales as I know on in these waters, but only sharks."

In answer to a question from Turnpenny, the head man of the maroons said that the canoe would be ready to take the water within a week. But he added that since the young lord had agreed to make the voyage with them, they were willing to remain a little longer on the island, in order to give careful finishing touches to the craft and ensure its thorough seaworthiness. Dennis thanked them, through the sailor, for this mark of consideration, and resolved to use the interval in teaching them the use of the caliver. He could not foresee what might ensue upon their landing; they would be at a disadvantage if they had no other arms with which to meet the Spaniards than axes and pikes.

Accordingly, he presented each of them with a caliver from the stores he had placed in Skeleton Cave, and for a certain portion of each day Turnpenny and he instructed them in marksmanship, choosing for their practice ground the deepest part of the chine, whence the noise of firing was least likely to be heard out at sea. The first experiments were disheartening, and at the same time amusing. At the kick of the cumbrous weapons the men flung them down in alarm, crying out that they were possessed with evil spirits. But their timidity was by degrees overcome; and when Dennis, in addition to practising them at fixed targets, rigged up a canvas figure which he suspended on two parallel ropes across the chine and ran from side to side by means of pulleys, they entered with some zest into the sport. At first the figure made many journeys to and fro without receiving a single hit; but within a week the marksmanship had improved astonishingly, and there was not a man of them but might be trusted to hit a moving object at fairly short range.

Meanwhile Amos, not content to trust the navigation of the canoe entirely to the maroons and their paddles, had busied himself in rigging up a mast with small sails taken out of the Maid Marian. When he at last pronounced the vessel ready, several kegs of water and boxes of biscuits were rolled down to the beach near at hand, and the party awaited only a favourable wind to launch their craft.

For some days there had been a dead calm, and when at length a light breeze sprang up it blew in shore. The natives grew impatient, and begged to be allowed to proceed with their paddles alone. But this Turnpenny stoutly refused. With a voyage of thirty or forty miles before them it was needful to spare the men as much as possible, lest when they reached the mainland they should be worn out, and unfit to cope with the labours and perhaps the struggles that awaited them. Turnpenny scanned the sky with a seaman's eye, in some fear lest the wind when it came should prove too boisterous for this strange craft, which he still looked on with distrust. One morning, however, he announced that a fresh breeze had sprung up from the north-west, promising to increase in force as the day wore on. No time was lost. The canoe was carried down to the beach and moored in shallow water; the stores were lifted aboard; then the two prisoners, pale with apprehension, and Baltizar the cook, were conveyed to the vessel on the backs of three stalwart maroons, and last of all Dennis and Turnpenny prepared to wade out.

During the proceedings at the beach the monkey had remained perched in a tree, watching everything with many signs of excitement. At the last moment Dennis turned and called to the animal; but it merely gibbered and blinked.

"Come, Mirandola," said Dennis, coaxingly, "we cannot go without you. I fear me you feel a declension from your high estate, when you were the sole partner of my solitude; but believe me, I still hold you in dear affection. Come then, and let your grave and reverend presence dignify this our enterprise."